{"id":733,"date":"2010-06-03T09:28:31","date_gmt":"2010-06-03T09:28:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/2010\/06\/03\/classical-cd-sales-not\/"},"modified":"2010-06-03T09:28:31","modified_gmt":"2010-06-03T09:28:31","slug":"classical-cd-sales-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/2010\/06\/03\/classical-cd-sales-not\/","title":{"rendered":"Classical CD Sales, Not"},"content":{"rendered":"

They\u2019re down again, according to Rupert Christiansen in today\u2019s Telegraph<\/a>. As he points out, though, that doesn\u2019t mean nobody wants to listen to classical music any more. Norman Lebrecht has long held views on what went wrong and continues to go wrong, and today carries news that over at Deutsche Grammophon another big shake-up<\/a> is taking place, president Chris Roberts is off, and \u201cthe dumbing-down policies of the last 15 years are to be reversed\u201d, which can only be a good thing.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

So what did<\/em> go wrong? Losing Lang Lang may have told DG a thing or two. But I can think of several widely admired \u2018artists\u2019 whose interpretations are questionable to say the least, yet are glitzily packaged by their record companies as if they were offering better music-making than a discerning ear would quickly ascertain was the case\u2026 Chuck \u2019em out! Chuck \u2019em out! <\/p>\n

It gets worse. In Paris former Vivendi boss Jean-Claude Messier (one for the appropriate names department?) and Edgar Bronfman, head of Warner Music Group and previously of Universal Classics, are on trial for fraud. It all goes back, says Norman, to \u201cthe freewheeling 80s\u201d. He has more on it here.<\/a> Watch that space.<\/p>\n

But for your average Person on the Internet, all this is not of huge relevance when it comes to buying, or not buying, recorded music. Perhaps Rupert is right and it is just the medium of the CD, once so ubiquitous, that has run its course. <\/p>\n

Now, it may be stating the obvious, but it doesn\u2019t get stated much. The real problem is that only a handful of serious collectors want to buy more than 100 recordings of the same piece of music.<\/em> Or more than 50. More than 10. More than two or three. How are we supposed to get excited and\/or reverent about yet another violinist \u201ccommitting Vivaldi\u2019s The Four Seasons<\/em> to disc\u201d? Or yet another ivory-basher delivering a CD of Schumann\u2019s Etudes Symphoniques<\/em> to prove the seriousness of their credentials? If even music professionals run away hunting for the earplugs, no wonder sales are evaporating.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

The crossover and\/or compilation gimmicks with which record companies have tried to keep the cash till ringing brought in some income short-term. But think of those horrendous singers (you know who I mean), the often-shoddy mix\u2019n\u2019match composer anniversary discs\/sets and the manufactured images that proved doomed \u2013 they\u2019ll bite the dust as ennui sets in amongst listeners.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

There aren\u2019t enough genuinely extraordinary artists around to sell the umphundredth disc of, say, the Schumann Piano Concerto. I\u2019ve just been comparing different discs of it for BBC Music Magazine and regret that the only one I can\u2019t live without was made 75 years ago. The majority of the others either sound half asleep or set off a good number of this ferociously difficult piece\u2019s plentiful landmines. And the three pianists of today whom I\u2019d most like to hear play it have not recorded it yet (in case you wondered: Stephen Hough, Mitsuko Uchida and Simon Trpceski). Recording concertos in a studio takes money, and there isn\u2019t any. <\/p>\n

So what does work? One of the greatest CDs I\u2019ve come across in recent years was Anne Sofie von Otter\u2019s disc devoted to the music of Terezin<\/a>. A disc with a powerful concept, a history to relate, music that is heard too rarely (but don\u2019t miss the Nash Ensemble\u2019s Terezin weekend<\/a> at Wigmore Hall later this month), fabulously performed and expertly annotated. It was effectively a documentary conveyed in music alone, for which some of the finest musicians in the business put themselves at the service of their collective purpose instead of their egos. That\u2019s what a classical album can do, and it would be a very good thing if it could do so rather more often. <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, on the Internet, you can not only hear but also watch Uchida play the Schumann concerto. CDs just can\u2019t keep up with the streaming of live concerts worldwide. Here she is, with the Berlin Phil & Rattle, in a Youtube taster. The whole thing can be viewed for a small fee in the BP\u2019s digital concert hall. <\/p>\n

Roll over, CDs. Your day is done. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/i><\/a><\/i><\/a><\/i><\/a><\/i><\/a><\/i><\/a><\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

No related posts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

They’re down again, according to Rupert Christiansen in today’s Telegraph. As he points out, though, that doesn’t mean nobody wants to listen to classical music any more. Norman Lebrecht has long held views on what went wrong and continues to go wrong, and today carries news that over at Deutsche Grammophon another big shake-up is taking place, president Chris Roberts is off, and “the dumbing-down policies of the last 15 years are to be reversed”, which can only be a good thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7055,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}